Who was Yousef Makki and what happened to him?

PROMISING student, Yousef Makki, had his life and future taken away from him in 2019.

In an incident his family are still looking to get to the bottom of, their son's life was to end in one moment of madness.

What happened to Yousef Makki?

Yousef Makki was a 17-year-old from Burnage, south Manchester, who had a scholarship to the then £12,000-a-year Manchester Grammar School.

On March 2, 2019, he was stabbed in the heart and subsequently died.

The sequence of events that led to the death of Makki are still very clouded.

What appeared to be an altercation among three friends, had an extremely fatal outcome.

Peter Weatherby QC, who represented the Makki family at the inquest, suggested the friends were arguing, with Yousef stepping in to break up the fight.

There was no CCTV evidence showing this.

The fatal stabbing was not caught on any camera but occurred at around 6.36pm.

However, Molnar and another friend denied they had fought when this was put to them at the inquest.

Yousef's sister, Jade Akoum, had called for a second inquest and judicial review into the case as Molnar only served eight months for the death of his friend.

She said: “We just don’t feel believed — nobody in the system is on our side. 

"I’m trying to be strong, but he was my brother, and all these details of how he died — I’ll never forgive myself that I couldn’t be there. 

“He died on his own, miles away from where he comes from. And we were thinking he was safe.”

Yousef's mum, Debbie, died less than a year after the loss of her son at the age of 54.

Jade said her mother's heart had been broken by Yousef's death and "the spark in her eyes had gone".

Before she died Debbie revealed that the police told her not to pursue the case further due to the cost.

In response, Debbie said: “It’s my child - and you don’t give up for your child no matter what it takes.”

While the family's request for a second inquest was heard, they could not return a verdict of "unlawful killing" due to the fact that the precise circumstances could not be ascertained.

Having always insisted that Yousef was a "peacemaker", the family said they were "disgusted" with the conclusion.

What happened to Joshua Molnar?

Molnar was a friend of Yousef's who also attended the independent school.

Joshua came from a wealthy background but became interested in gangster culture and tried to create a bad boy image.

His parents described him as a "normal, typical teenage lad" and a "fabulously creative chef" in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Their other friend had bought knives online which they carried with them, while smoking cannabis on the fateful night.

When police arrived at the scene, Molnar told the police he did not know what happened to Yousef.

Later he said he acted in self defence when Yousef pulled a knife on him and during an inquest Molnar said he no longer knew who pulled the blade on who.

Molnar also filmed videos of himself with a machete, including one where he made stabbing motions towards another boy.

Joshua said during his trial: “If I had a pretty cool knife I would show it off a bit."

Peer pressure reportedly made him feel like he should be carrying a knife for protection and he had carried one in an Armani bag since the age of 15.

Molnar had a QC to represent him for the trial and succeeded in getting bail, which is rare for such an offence.

The jury cleared him of murder and manslaughter on the basis of self defence.

He was instead sentenced to 16 months in a young offenders' institution for perverting the course of justice and possession of a knife, with Joshua serving just half of his sentence.

Molnar said that he had tried to help Yousef by taking off his top and trying to stem the bleeding.

The other boy involved, served a four-month sentence for possession of a knife.